This invention relates to typographic apparatus and is more particularly directed to the provision of an electronic typographic apparatus, having a display panel preferably for displaying a plurality of display lines. The invention incorporates the features of justification of one of the display lines and proportional spacing of the displayed characters.
In the past, many typographic devices have been developed, including such features as automatic justification, as well as the proportional display of characters. Such equipment, of an electromagnetic construction, is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,945,480, issued Mar. 23, 1976 for justifying Text Reproducing Machine, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,179 issued Nov. 23, 1976 for Justifying Text Writing Composing Machine, these patents being assigned to the Assignee of the present invention.
At the present time, in view of significant advances that have been made in electronic components, it is natural to expect that electronic typographic devices may be fabricated that are more versatile, less cumbersome, and more easily produced than funtionally equivalent mechanical and electromechanical devices. The present invention is therefore directed to the provision of electronic typographic apparatus embodying, insofar as practicable, the broader concepts disclosed in the above-mentioned applications. It will be apparent, of course, that direct application of all of the features of the disclosures of the above applications to electronic systems would not necessarily result in the provision of a device of optimum design, and hence the present invention is directed to the adaptation of the systems of the above references to electronic equipment in such a manner that full advantage may be taken of the characteristics of available electronic components.
Briefly stated, in accordance with the present invention, a typographic apparatus is provided wherein coded data from a conventional keyboard is applied to a memory, which may be in the form of one or more shift registers. The device may be provided with an electronic display, such as a CRT display device, for the display of a plurality of lines of characters.
When the display has a plurality of display lines, each character memory corresponds to data of a given line of text, whereby under the control of control circuits, the corresponding text may be displayed at any of the display lines on the display device.